Citrix Systems Inc. acquired Cloud.com on Tuesday for a rumored price of $200-250 million. “The acquisition will let Citrix customers run cloud-computing software faster and more cheaply.” GoDaddy.com, Zynga, and Nokia are all Cloud.com customers that rely on the service to run their website in the cloud and handle their traffic. This acquisition puts Citrix into closer competition with VMware and Amazon.com, which also host websites on their cloud platforms.

• Citrix Systems Acquires Cloud.com to Challenge Rivals VMware, Amazon

The four reasons Casey outlines as to why the cloud is not overhyped are geography, faster deployment speeds, room for growth, and frequency of updates and enhancements. Geography because companies with offices all over the state, country, world, what have you, can access the same data at the same time, without the fear that something problematic would happen to a single data center. Faster deployment speeds and room for growth are important because as businessues such as the Schumacher Group grow rapidly, the cloud services can be set up quickly, keep up with growth, and maintain high speeds better than an on-site server would. And finally, the frequency of updates and enhancements allows for more growth and simple updates without hassle.

• 4 Reasons Cloud Computing Isn’t Overhyped

According to new In-Stat research, public cloud computing “is set to grow “153% from 2010 to 2015.” IaaS is predicted to grow to about $4 billion by 2015, SaaS will grow 142%. In addition, small businesses are expected to be the fastest growing size segment, “growing from $2.5 billion by 2010 and $6.6 billion by 2015.” SaaS and IaaS are important to small businesses because of the ease of use, the accessibility, and the cost savings they provide.

• Public Cloud Computing is Set to Grow 153% From 2010 to 2015

Cloud services “can and will fail at some point,” there is no reason to deny it. However, to ensure that business runs smoothly during these times, businesses must fully understand what possible problems could arise and find out how to solve them if the event occurs. If an organization is experiencing performance problems, consider Cloudsleuth, “an open online cloud community sponsored by Compuware,” which helps uncover and solve performance problems. If companies do experience slower response times or lower network bandwidth, they should try to uncover the issue before it turns into something even larger, such as the service shutting down completely. Do not let these types of problems discourage you from joining the cloud. Just like IT services, problems will arise, but learn how to fix them and have an alternative plan prepared, and the downtime will go smoothly.

• What to Do When the Cloud Fails

VMware announced their new version of vSphere cloud operating system on Tuesday. The new upgrade is “aimed at making it easier for small and medium sized businesses to adopt cloud computing.” The upgrade included better security, storage, and recovery features. New storage features allows for companies to “pool internal storage from several computers into one secure pool” without needing to purchase additional services or hardware. VMwares announcement was juxtaposed with Citrix’s acquisition of Cloud.com, which puts the two companies in bigger competition with the other.

• VMware Expands Cloud Suite, Boosts Storage Abilities